any better than this
by findmywaybacktoyou
Summary: Matt and Caroline have and will always be inevitable. An all human, AU journey through time as they make their ways back to each other.  one-shot


**Title:** any better than this

**Pairing(s)/Character(s):** Matt/Caroline, with slight Liz/Mason, Stefan/Elena, Jeremy/Tyler, Damon/Bonnie

**Summary:** Matt and Caroline have and will always be inevitable. An all human, AU journey through time as they make their ways back to each other.

**Disclaimer:** I own nothing. Unfortunately.

* * *

><p>They break up the summer before college. Caroline crawls into Matt's bed after letting herself in and, curling up next to her longtime boyfriend, tells him they should break up.<p>

The distance would be too long, she says, and she knows she has a tendency to be overbearing and annoying and she'll say things she won't mean because she'll be jealous, and they'll fight and she doesn't want them to fight because he means so much to her and she can't bear to live without him in her life so they have to break up so they can remain friends. She is sobbing throughout her babble, but Matt gets her, as he always does.

He kisses her then, slow and languid. Partly to shut her up, and partly because he knows it will be the last for now. She smiles into it, taking it for what it is.

They curl up together in the bed, not talking, simply letting themselves be. There is no loud yelling, nothing to indicate that they are no longer a couple. They don't have to say anything because they know that this break-up is not permanent. Someday, they'll be together again because they're everything to each other.

* * *

><p>People would assume that things would be awkward between them. After all, they had been together for the better part of high school. But then again, Matt and Caroline have never been ones for living up to expectations.<p>

They go back to the way they were before they got together – best friends, hanging out before the beginning of the rest of their lives. There is a hint of something more between them, but that has always been there. That has been there since they were eight and Matt leaned across the swings and pecked her on the lips so Kevin-the-drooler from down the street would stop making her cry.

They've loved each other for so long, and loved each other so well that they can never be anything less than best friends.

They'll be more again someday, is what Matt's e-mails tell Caroline once classes begin.

* * *

><p>Contact between the rather large group of friends dwindles as they get into the swing of classes and assignments. They're scattered across the country, but somehow they manage to swing group calls every once in awhile. E-mails and phone calls lessen the distance, and occasionally one of the girls will get sentimental and send a handwritten letter full of inside jokes.<p>

Caroline goes on a few dates with some of her classmates, and it's nice. Matt meets this sweet girl at a bookstore and they date for a while. Neither one of them shies away from the dating pool, or hide this from the other. It's the way they are. Matt goes to Caroline for advice on gifts while Caroline bitches to Matt about men never saying what they mean.

They're still friends, in some ways stronger than ever.

* * *

><p>The first time they're all in the same place together after a really long period of time – barring of course the short visits they pay one another – is for Caroline's mom's wedding. To Mason Lockwood. Yeah, no one really saw that coming either.<p>

Caroline stands next to her mom at the altar, eyes sparkling. She's never seen her mom look so happy, so radiant, and it makes her heart swell. Her mom and her may not have always seen eye-to-eye but they love one another, and Mason makes her mom so happy.

Tyler winks at her, blatantly, from next to his uncle. Matt, long-suffering best friend of the perpetual flirt, sighs and rolls his eyes at them both. Caroline has to stifle her giggles.

Later, Tyler drapes himself on the chair next to hers and hits on her loudly. The teasing smirk on his face as he claims that it's the best man's prerogative to hit on the maid of honour doesn't slip even as Bonnie shoves him over to another chair so she can sit next to her best friend. Elena pats her brother's arm in mock sympathy as his boyfriend goes from hitting the blonde to his new aunt before turning to Stefan. Her annoyance when her boyfriend plays along though has her brother tugging Tyler away and onto the dance floor.

They're the last ones to leave from the venue. The group are not as loud as they were earlier. Caroline's conversation with Bonnie is interrupted by a lewd comment by Damon, and that quickly turns into argument number god-knows-how many between the two. She ends up next to Matt, a wry grin on both their lips as they follow behind their friends. His fingers curl around hers, an action so natural that neither one of them pays it any mind. It doesn't matter that they're broken up – they will always be the center of each other's world.

* * *

><p>Matt is the second person she calls after she lands the job she wants. The first is her mother, who is so happy for her. (Or at least, that's the sense she gets before her new stepdad steals the phone and tells her that sleeping with her co-workers andor boss is a bad idea, and if she ever needs bail money, to call him instead of her mother. She loves her new stepdad.)

He's happy for her, and he has news of his own. He's moving – to San Francisco. He later claims that her squeal made him for deaf for a couple of weeks, but at that moment she is too excited that he'll be nearby to care.

* * *

><p>It's so easy to slip back into the way they've always been together. They go for dinners every week, and she's over at his place almost every weekend. There's an indent of his body in her couch since he's slept there so often. But they're not dating. Even if everybody else in the city thinks they are.<p>

He finally tells her that she should move in with him after she turns up at his apartment at two in the morning because it was nearer to her workplace. They start sleeping in the same room three weeks after her apartment has been sold, and just like that they're dating again.

It's done without pomp and drama, and while Caroline can be admittedly dramatic, when it comes to her relationship with Matt, it's always been different. They've always been different.

* * *

><p>The smile on Matt's face when the doors open and Caroline walks in is something none of their friends ever let him forget. He never cares though, because walking towards him on the arm of her stepdad is the angel he's been in love with since they were kids. Her eyes are shining, and the edges of her lips are tilted upwards in a smile that is full of promises.<p>

He takes her hand, fingers curling around hers reflexively. His eyes have a hard time leaving her form. He may have always known, instinctively, that the two of them would be here someday, but to actually have it happen – this moment right here, it's all his dreams and wishes coming true.


End file.
